Sue Campbell - The Parental Leave Playbook

This charade consumed her, and at the time we both believed she was successful at it. She hid her pregnancy from her work world until she was over 5 months along. But what I have come to see is the many ways she failed herself and her workplace community. She couldn't share her excitement. She put up false boundaries that felt inauthentic to her and kept her from bringing her all to her work. She endured real stress, affecting her health and wellness. Those senior executives she worked with didn't get to see that someone could be brilliant and effective while at the same time being pregnant and, yes, vulnerable. Their bias, unconscious or not, went unchallenged and thus was not given a chance to change.

Another friend I'll call Jarvez told everyone at work early on about his wife being pregnant. Right away he seemed to get more leeway and understanding if he fell behind or didn't meet a goal. His coworkers even admonished him if he stayed too late at the office, telling him to go home because he wasn't going to get much more time alone with his wife. These stories exemplify what researchers call the “fatherhood bonus” and the “motherhood penalty.” 1

Indeed, studies show that parenthood leads to different career outcomes for moms and dads. Compared to women without children, working moms are penalized in the form of fewer promotions and salary increases. Working dads, by contrast, get a boost in status and salary compared to childless men. The good news is that this might come down to outdated assumptions employers make about the employee's family role and how parenthood affects them, namely, that a mom's dedication to her career will wane because her attention will be divided with caregiving, but a dad's dedication will increase because he will be responsible for bringing home the bacon. These assumptions can be challenged and changed in how you talk to your manager and colleagues. Researchers found that the fatherhood bonus was more accurately a “breadwinner bonus” that could apply to mothers, too. Simply changing terms and reframing working mothers as breadwinners seems to reduce the motherhood penalty. Sadly, a caregiving penalty remains a reality, whether mom or dad does the caregiving. 2

Clearly, our culture has prejudices about both moms and dads. One of the most effective ways to change those perceptions is case by case. When a manager experiences a mom who takes charge of her own parental leave and a new dad who makes it a priority to spend time at home bonding with his baby while both are still rocking it at work, those preconceptions are released and new norms have a chance to form.

I will coach you on how to flip the script so you can create the type of transition experience you want. Moms and dads alike, I will show you ways to embrace parenthood while crafting the career path that makes sense for you and your priorities and helps level the playing field. Only when men are empowered to be equal caregivers will women experience equality in the workplace and men experience equality at home. The ultimate goal is for all new parents to be able to live to the fullest the joys and triumphs of both career and home.

Because our workplaces are largely inept at helping employees through parental leave, many new parents see it as a big, unmanageable process that must be discreet or even hidden for fear of jeopardizing career prospects. It does not have to be that way. A successful parental leave strategy can be broken down into touchpoints to be managed well for the benefit of all. I'll give you the tools and resources to handle anything and everything this transition throws at you. I can't promise it will always be easy. But it will be easier and more enjoyable when you know what to expect, what to watch out for, and how to make the most of what you have working for you.

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Thankfully, times are changing in your favor. We are on the brink (fingers crossed) of a federal paid leave policy. There is far less stigma about the challenges of adoption, pregnancy, miscarriage, and parenting than ever before. One silver lining of the coronavirus pandemic is the growing recognition that working parents pull off amazing feats every single day and that it is time our society gave them more support (as evidenced by the aid for parents included in the nearly $2 trillion American Rescue Plan passed by Congress and signed by President Biden in 2021, as well as Biden's American Families Plan, which he unveiled at his first congressional address in April 2021. That $1.8 trillion proposal was the first to include a plan for paid parental leave and recognized it as a critical component of any successful national caregiving infrastructure).

Still, there is much work to be done, and on an individual level, we all need more support. You are about to undergo exciting changes in all the roles you play in your life. Here is what our path together in this book will look like.

First, we will take a brief look at the current state of parental leave in this country. We'll touch on challenges faced by working families, the challenges unique to motherhood and fatherhood, respectively, and the issues that arise in workplaces when employees become parents. Feel free to skim any areas that feel like too much information. You do not need to become overwhelmed with every possibility, but you also do not want the “Why didn't anyone tell me?!” feeling so many new parents experience.

We will go over how you can shape your experience by implementing the actions outlined in this playbook and also what the future could look like for all of us, if we are willing to work toward it. Every parent, every manager, every CEO, every legislator, and every voter has a role to play in creating a future in which families are healthier and more prosperous—and true equity is realized.

While I was finishing my doctorate after my son's birth over a decade ago, I set out to create a field of coaching dedicated to better navigating the transition to parenthood for working people. Drawing on seven academic research streams, I created a model that helps support new and expecting working parents to leverage the profound opportunities of this often overlooked and sometimes purposefully hidden life event. Although you don't need to know all the theoretical underpinnings of this model, called RETAIN (an acronym), a quick walkthrough in Chapter 1will help you implement what you find in this playbook.

Most people think of parental leave as the time you are absent from work to bond with your new child. I want to encourage you to think more holistically than that. I have come to see parental leave as a transition period that is best broken into three phases: (1) preparing for leave, (2) during leave, and (3) returning from leave—whether you have an official paid parental leave or not . I will coach you on how to approach this transition from a position of thoughtfulness instead of being forced into reaction mode. If you let our culture steer your leave, you will likely have many difficult experiences (and that's me putting it nicely). This playbook walks you through the critical moments for each phase so you can lead your own leave and have a successful transition—however you define success.

In Phase 1,especially if this is your first child, you are naturally still very much work identified. Now is the time to take practical steps to prepare to be away from work to welcome your child. We will focus on your announcement and on identifying the supports you can draw on to overcome any bumps in the road. Then we will dig into action planning for your leave and find ways to soak in and celebrate as you put work on hold so you can embrace parenthood.